May 2018: The Value of Getting into the Weeds

There are various kinds of leaders in our industry, although most fall into two groups: those who have risen through the ranks of their organization where they have focused on the hands-on use of technology and the enabling role it plays in the business, and those who tend to leave the technology to the technologists and treat it as just another tool and a means to an end. There are no right or wrong ways, just different approaches to technology and separate paths followed.  

Two technologists from the first group who feature in this month’s issue of Waters are Halcyon Capital Management’s Charles Walters, the subject of this month’s cover story by Anthony Malakian, and Veronica Augustsson, CEO of Stockholm-based Cinnober Financial Technology. While Walters and Augustsson have different approaches to their technology, given that Walters is a consumer and Augustsson is a producer, their careers aren’t all that dissimilar in the sense that they both cut their tech teeth through long hours of development work, implementing new pieces of software, and applying technology solutions to business-specific problems at the organizations where they have worked. 

While the phrase “getting into the weeds” might suggest a scenario where one becomes bogged down in the minutiae of a particular subject, when it comes to capital markets technology, details matter. A lot. It takes a full appreciation and understanding of the details to recognize the opportunities, practicalities, implications and challenges that technologies offer the business, a scenario alluded to by Augustsson when I met her in London in early April. “My driving force isn’t all about trying to understand everything about the capital markets, but rather about understanding how technology can be used. I want to be at that crossroads,” she said. Walters echoes Augustsson’s sentiments, explaining what exactly it was about the Manhattan-based hedge fund that he found so appealing: “What attracted me to Halcyon is I like getting my hands dirty and understanding things at a deep level and understanding the business proposition in a real way,” he explained. Clearly, focusing exclusively on technology development to the detriment of their business applications is dangerously myopic and can prove terminal if unchecked, hence the premium Walters and Augustsson place on the relationship between the two fundamentals. 

And what about the second kind of leader? Is there anyone who springs to mind who has assumed a senior technology-focused role with limited hands-on tech experience? Yes, Deutsche Bank’s global head of innovation, Elly Hardwick. She describes herself as “not a technologist,” and yet she plays a pivotal role in the identification and implementation of new technologies that help her client—the bank—further its business interests. And as luck would have it, she’s the subject of next month’s cover story.